This watchdog blog, by journalist Norman Oder, offers analysis, commentary, and reportage about the $4.9B project to build the Barclays Center arena and 15-16 towers at a crucial site in Brooklyn. Dubbed Atlantic Yards by developer Forest City Ratner in 2003, it was rebranded Pacific Park Brooklyn in 2014 after the Chinese government-owned Greenland Group bought a 70% stake going forward. As of 2018, after the arena and four towers were built, Greenland will own 95% of future construction.

And yes, the Brooklyn Nets really are worth $2.3 billion, because they found a buyer:

Mikhail Prokhorov is on the verge of selling 49% of the Nets to Taiwanese billionaire Joseph Tsai. The Alibaba co-founder has an option to assume majority control by the end of 2021. The deal values the Nets at $2.3 billion and does not include operating rights to the Barclays Center where the Nets play their home games.

That's an enormous leap in value, and a testament to Jay-Z's line that pro teams are like "paintings for billionaires."

After all, when Forest City Enterprises/Forest City Ratner sold its 20% of the team to Prokhorov in early 2016, as well as its majority share of the arena, "the transaction values the team at approximately $875 million and the arena at $825 million, inclusive of debt," the developer said 2/1/16.

Last year, I took issue with Forbes' valuation of the team at $1.8 million, as their rather flexible methodology linked team and arena. This year they don't link the two. So the team's value didn't really increase 28%. It increased more than 100%, by my estimation.

Our estimated income statements include revenue team owners get from non-NBA events at their arena. The Nets basketball team posted a sizable financial loss but turned a profit if you include revenue from the Barclays Center and non-NBA events at the Brooklyn arena, which both funnel into the pockets of Prokhorov.

Wait a sec. They lost a bunch of money, but they turned a profit? Forbes reported $273 million in revenue for the Nets+arena.

(By the way, Forbes said the Tsai deal valued the team "at roughly eight times" revenue. Not so, if you recognize their revenue is way below $273 million. In other words, Tsai is paying an insane price, based on that metric. But he can afford it.)

I'm not sure how Forbes calculates net income at $52 million, because the arena reported net operating income at about $28 million, which presumably would be reduced by Nets' losses.

Then again, Forbes' methodology is not the same as the way the arena reported its financials, and there may be some double-counting involved.

I can say that, as Moody's pointed out last October, the arena had a very small cushion to cover debt service and its credit rating is in jeopardy of being downgraded to junk. And that was without considering the Nets' "sizable financial loss."